Dark Dice: Cthulhu Investigation Log - Expansion Pack (The Lost Case Files) delivers a strategy RPG adventure built around dice-driven investigations into Lovecraftian horror on PC. Players manage investigators through standalone cases drawn from classic stories, balancing risk, evidence collection, and irreversible decisions in a single-player format that emphasizes consequence over repetition.
Gameplay
The core loop centers on recruiting investigators at society headquarters, equipping them from accumulated items, and deploying them into self-contained cases. Each investigator draws from one of eight professions such as Professor, Antiquarian, Patrolman, Athlete, Actor, Politician, Private Investigator, or Doctor, with skills and credit rating shaped by an in-fiction psychology quiz. Checks rely on dice rolls that incorporate human capability, occupational expertise, and optional insight dice, where higher results reveal more information but risk escalating sanity loss. Sanity erodes through choices and discoveries, altering how a damaged investigator performs in later checks. Permadeath ensures that a fallen investigator ends that story permanently, with no reloads available past critical failures. Between cases, players build a roster, gather ancient knowledge and merit, and prepare for the next assignment while managing the long-term effects of prior investigations.
The expansion shifts the structure for its 35 new cases. Every scenario features a sealed door at its center that requires six specific relics to open. These relics appear through different routes created by mutually exclusive choices, such as questioning one witness over another or searching one location at the expense of another. Characters from the source stories react to prior treatment, potentially becoming allies or obstacles in the final chapter. Evidence gathered influences deductions about who or what to trust, expose, seal, or destroy, leading to varied conclusions. Up to eight endings per case range from clean resolutions to narrow escapes or worse outcomes, encouraging multiple playthroughs to explore different paths and costs.
Game Modes
All content consists of single-player narrative cases without separate multiplayer or competitive modes. The base game provides 32 standalone investigations set across the Cthulhu Mythos, each designed for one-time completion or replay through different investigator builds. The expansion adds its own set of 35 cases that operate under the relic-gathering and branching-choice system described above. These cases remain independent, allowing players to tackle them in any order after unlocking the expansion. No seasonal events, live-service elements, or shared-world features appear in the verified structure.
Key Features and Content
The expansion includes cases adapted directly from stories such as Celephaïs, The Silver Key, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, The Whisperer in Darkness, The Dreams in the Witch House, The Thing on the Doorstep, The Haunter of the Dark, The Lurking Fear, The Shunned House, The Music of Erich Zann, and additional titles listed in the full case roster. Each preserves the original period, setting, characters, and central horror while granting the investigator agency to alter outcomes. New achievements total 70 across the expansion. Text support covers full English and Traditional Chinese, with Simplified Chinese available as well. The expansion requires the base game to access its content.
Is It Worth Playing?
This title suits players who enjoy narrative-driven strategy RPGs with heavy emphasis on dice mechanics, permanent consequences, and Lovecraft source material. The branching paths and multiple endings reward experimentation with different investigators and choices, while the relic system in the expansion adds layers of resource management and trade-offs absent from standard cases. With the game having launched in its complete form only recently, player feedback remains limited, yet the mechanics deliver consistent tension through sanity erosion and permadeath. Those seeking replayable single-player adventures focused on deduction, character interaction, and varied resolutions will find substantial depth here, particularly if they appreciate the source stories and the cost of each decision.
